Daughter of billionairess Rinehart has eating disorder

THE daughter of mining billionairess Gina Rinehart has broken her silence about her decades-long battle with an eating disorder and with depression.

Bianca Rinehart told The Weekend Australian she was not ashamed of her mental illness which her sister Ginia was attempting to use in the bitter family feud between the heirs to the massive Australian Hancock mining fortune.

Bianca and her brother John have been engaged in a war with Ginia and their mother, Gina, who is Australia's richest woman, over the family billions.

Bianca Rinehart said she hoped the revelations about her condition would destigmatise mental illness.

Bianca, 37, admitted she suffered from an eating disorder as an 18-year-old and received treatment in a London clinic paid for by her billonairess mother.

She also received treatment for depression.

After a more than two year long family battle, Bianca had become recently concerned about attempts by Ginia to uncover and possibly publicly reveal her medical history.

"Ginia's lawyers want to investigate my medical history. My whole family knows I had an eating disorder in my late teens," she said in a statement to The Weekend Australian.

Last month, Bianca nominated herself as potential head of the family trust, which controls a quarter of Australia's largest private company, Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd and is worth more than $4 billion.

The girls' grandfather, West Australian mining pioneer, Lang Hancock, set up the Hope Margaret Hancock Trust in 1988.

Before the split: Bianca and her mother Gina Hancock have fallen out over the family fortune since this 2005 photograph. Pict...Source:News Limited

"I love my sister and bear no animus towards her for this approach, and I'm addressing it as I strongly feel that nobody should be ashamed to seek help for any mental illness and have the support of their loved ones in so doing," Bianca said.

"My experience and overcoming the illness has enabled me to positively support others struggling with the disorder."

During the ongoing Rinehart feud, Ginia has accused Bianca of marrying another mining executive in "secret".

Bianca and Sasha Serebryakov of the international mining giant, Rio Tinto, married in Hawaii last April before 30 guests, who did not include Gina or Ginia Rinehart.